by Adewale Atewogbade

Created on: April 09, 2009

For most people, technology, especially computers, are these hideous scary monsters hiding in a grey or black box that must be treated with the utmost respect. Before the personal computer became popular, some early users were afraid of touching the keyboard, others were scared the monitors might explode if they did something wrong. Common hang ups end up creating consternation in the mind of the uninitiated.

What this kind of attitude did was create a cadre of demigods whose responsibility it was to temper the rage of the brute. Some of these early computer experts were not wont to display their prowess given the opportunity.

Some of the early computer myths have recently been dispelled by proliferation of the technology and information overload; and most people seem have to adapted to the seeming complexity of computers.

After several years of computer technology evoluton however, some kinks still need to be ironed out. Some of these kinks can be rectified by the average user, some are just transient malfunctions that fade away at the next boot, while others require the attention of a seasoned computer technician.

Mackintosh and the IBM compatibles are the two dominant computer technologies in existence for personal desktop and laptop computer users. The line seem to be blurring these days between what makes the MAC different from an IBM compatible. Some other technologies do exist but are usually not available to the average use.

Any computer, is made up of the hardware and the software components. The hardware usually is the black or grey box to which we attach a variety of input deices like keyboards, mice etc, output devices like monitors, printers etc, and networking devices like modems, routers etc.

The software components include, but are not limited to the basic input output system, the operating systems, firewalls, anti virus systems and application programs.

Inside the grey/black box are the central processing unit which can be a combination of the motherboard on which resides an Intel or AMD processor, the BIOS chip, video/audio chip sets, and a variety of connectors, storage media, memory chips, power supply, cooling fan and a variety of other components. The software usually resides in the storage media when not in use and is swapped in and out of memory as needed when in use.

The modular nature of computer technology makes it easy for the average user to replace certain parts that may have become dysfunctional or obsolete in their system, while living

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